To not understand why anyone cares if other mothers choose to feed their babies breastmilk or formula.

[honeytea]

I am a new mum and have only recently come across the breastfeeding/formula feeding debate.

I breastfeed my DS because it is free and he is growing well and it is easy I don't think we would leave the house if i had to think about bringing steralised bottles and milk with me

I like other people's babies but I can't say I have an opinion on how other women feed their babies, so long as the baby is fed it is really nothing to do with me.

Why do some people care so much about what a baby eats? There are so many things in the world to get angry about, starving children, children with freezing homes, abuse horrid horrid things but so many people seem to get het up about well loved children drinking formula.

Am I missing something?

Sacrificing a baby's health? Can anybody be fagged responding to this. I'm losing the will.

But the numbers of SIDS babies are thankfully low so bfing perhaps giving babies less chance of dying of SIDS isn't saying a lot to be frank- there are far riskier variables eg smoking,co-sleeping which may increase the slim chance of your baby getting SIDS.

Said link also hinted further down that risk of infection from ff was perhaps the increased risk we get back to the need for more vigorous advertising of safe formula preparation.

There is also no data directly linking formula and formula alone to an increase of the slim chance of a SIDS death.

I'm with you Morris.

Yes breast is best we know. It is best for the baby's health, the mother's health etc etc. And women should be helped when they need it, and given all the advice and so on.

But really, it is not always best. It is best when the mother's mental health suffers seriously as a result of it? Thus affecting her partner and possibly her other children, as well as her baby? Is it best when the mother is doing so, only to please people around her, when really, she'd just like to bottle feed? Is it best when she is being pushed into it, because she would feel 'guilty' if she bottle fed.

It's all a load of bollocks. Breastmilk or Formula. Whichever one suits you, fine. Or both, as many mums do. Whatever. Just feed that baby.

What dreaming said

If you look at the meta studies (I'm too lazy to read all the original studies). They reveal biases and contradictions when claiming any of the health benefits including diabetes, allergies etc.

The studies into whether it causes SIDS are also inconclusive. In some studies there was shown to be a negligible difference between those who had been "breastfed at all" but not for any lenght of time and other studies showed no difference. But thanks for bringing another highly emotive subject into the mix. Breast cancer, SIDS, do you have a checklist?

Perhaps the NHS should invest more money in screening women for breast cancer (which btw concerns a growing number of younger women)...

I never thought I'd see the day where a bottle feeding mum was sat in the toilet 'Guiltily' feeding her baby but thats what happened a few weekends before Christmas at the posh party put on by the cricket/tennis club I work at. This mother couldn't admit to her friends that she'd given up after a struggle with breast feeding. Jeez. Imagine not being able to tell your friends that you're struggling if you don't follow the path they do?

What I find frightening is that certain types of people are allowed anywhere near a women who has just given birth.

There should really be stricter rules about who should be giving advice and support to vulnerable women at one of the most vulnerable times in their lives.

Breast is best for utopia? I didn't see all the pro BFers jump on that little gem of incorrectness.

Oh great, yet again, a thread where women start attacking each other. I'm pretty sure our male counterparts aren't getting so annoyed by such issues.

I don't care how a mother chooses to feed her new born. I respect each women to make that choice based on what is best for her and her child.

Quite frankly women who want to judge and 'educate' others (by making them feel guilty and inadequate) need to jog on!

My mum FF both my bro and me. The only time I got to talk about her choice she vaguely replied something along the lines of her breasts were too small.

I'm now 44, and having been able to observe her over the years I am convinced the real reason is because she has a real big issue on bodily contacts (so the fact that Bro and I got here must be a minor miracle). EG, DS has had a bowel problem that at times has meant we've had to smear vaseline on his bum and a little just inside his anus to soothe his skin. Her reaction when I mentioned this was weird, she was so fastidious she couldn't contemplate doing something like that.

And she wasn't overly keen to see me BF my two DCs either.

So some women do have issues and no amount of information is going to change that.

Otherwise, I'm happy in that I got to BF both of mine.

My friend, meanwhile, did get some personal animosity over the fact that she FF hers. Problem was she didn't want to have to constantly explain she'd had a double masectomy due to cancer (genetic and therefore no amount of breastfeeding is going to reduce that risk) and couldn't therefore, BF. Even when she did explain, one stupid cow woman still carried on the sniping and generally trying to make her feel like shit, totally ignoring the fact that it was either her breasts or her life.

FreePeace - that is really very sad.
I've BF in a toilet once. BUT I was at a wake in a pub, had already BF in the actual pub, but decided to move to the loo for the next feed as the pub was filling up with men I didn't know, and because of what I was wearing (whole boob had to be exposed pretty much!) I didn't want a load of men I didn't know seeing my boobs.

I think the SIDS connection is a bit...off? Yes FF babies may be likely to dies from SIDS, but FF babies are also more likely to have parents who smoke (possible SIDS cause), etc. Mothers who breastfeed are more likely to co-sleep, not smoke etc?

It's true, I don't live my life in 100% accordance with the NHS website.

Not because I've ignored anything, but because life is not black and white. Sometimes you can't always make the perfect decision. Sometimes you don't want to and hey presto it's no big deal anyway.

It's all fine and dandy to go on the internet and make sad faces at other people's stupid choices but I don't for a second believe anyone on this thread does everything perfectly, all the time.

This comment will be lost in all the others but I did still want to post it.

I was probably a bit judgemental about ff before I had DD but as she wouldn't feed properly from the breast and screamed all night long when we tried I express bf and give her formula if/when I don't have enough.

I feel very bad doing this and really feel like I'm giving her filler crap (don't think that's correct though?) and feel that generally society judges me and others who ff as bad/lazy mothers.

Bloody fed up with women as mothers having to feel guilt about every single move they make with their own children wheras men as fathers don't seem to have to bear this weight of responsibility Probably a) not very fair to men and b) another thread for another day!

I really think there's more of an issue with woman judging themselves on this issue than judging each other.

There seems to be a lot of FF's saying "breast feeding evangelical's are judging us", and BF's feeling that they are seen as old fashioned, alternative, or that FF is viewed as the more "norm" thing to do.

Seem's to be more about mum's being insecure about their choices and peoples opinions, and guessing/assuming how others are viewing them, rather than people actually looking down their noses at each other.

I think you're right HopAndSkip.

I do find myself getting annoyed when I feel the need to lie about why I chose to bf. Lots of people saying they do it because they're 'lazy', simply to dumb down the real reason why which is usually because they see it as being the best way to feed their baby. I'm sick of people saying 'oh well, it doesn't really matter does it', when I think it does. It matters to me and I don't really care what other people think or what they choose to feed their own baby.

Somehow the act of making a decision which happens to be different from someone else's choice has to be viewed as an attack on them. If someone asks why I bf, I'm completely open about it. I don't question people who ff feed on their choice, but frequently find that they question me.

Dreaming, thanks for posting that link, I did mention it on the other thread but couldn't link. I really think Shagmund should read it...

As you say, NHS and government policy isn't always unquestionably correct or even well supported by evidence. For example, the question of how much alcohol is safe in pregnancy has similarly observational and poorly controlled research around it, hence flaky recommendations.

I don't think in a wider context, ie in the UK smoking, drug takers, mentally ill, people who can't cope and in the actual world where mothers are malnourished, it really matters. I don't think it matters or makes a difference wherever you live. My sister was anti FF, anti prams, anti non organic food, anti being on a platform with a smoker, anti everything until her third was 2 weeks old when she left her husband of 12 years and ran away with a school caretaker (she is a teacher),(ex is a well known scientist). That fucked the kids up enough to render them unable to cope with life so, again, it's horses for courses.

I dont care, as long as the baby gets milk, feed him/her how you bloody well want and ignore ignore ignore anyone who takes an unhealthy interest in what you do with your own breasts.

I too only BF DS2 because its free, it certainly wasnt for the bloody health aspects

I do care how people choose to feed their baby because the research shows breat is best food for baby both physically & emotionally. The burden on our health system would be less if more people followed the guidelines.

I will give advise to friends/acquaintances if they ask, but lactivist as I am, I never offer advice if they don't ask. In private I may roll my eyes/wring my hands, but never make any sign to them, I swear.

So I do care, but never preach to mothers... I know bf isn't suitable for everyone, but I do wish those struggling with it got more support.

The whole thing about formula being prepared incorrectly meaning that formula is bad is as nonsensical as saying that badly prepared chicken means that chicken in general is bad.

To be fair, almost anything when not used correctly is going to be bad.

You can't exactly compare FF that is done wrong with BF and then acting as if that is the definitive comparison. It makes no sense and will obviously give biased results.

As for people justifying their actions because they feel guilty/know they are wrong. Maybe, just maybe, that's because we know that it isn't the most ideal solution and because we know there are idiots out there who do judge. And some of us are unfortunate enough that those idiots have been supposed health care professionals.

I'm very glad that when I was struggling to breastfeed my baby, when I dreaded the moment she would wakeup because it meant she would want to feed and I couldn't bear the pain, that there were women who cared enough about how I fed my baby to spend their free time sorting out my problems so I was able to feed my baby the way we both wanted.

Such a tricky subject which I had to learn to change my opinions the hard way. I have 3 dc, I was evangelical about bf my first and hung out with uber liberal nct gang probably feeling very smug that I was doing the 'best' for my baby and slightly looking down my nose at people that chose the bottle. Then I bf my daughter with no probs so it probably increased my smugness. Then ds came along and I got mastitis early on, and it didn't go away, for 6 weeks. It was pure hell and completely killed me. In the end I got an abscess and had to have an op which left me with no option but to ff. It really p*ed me off the conflicting advice I got when I had mastitis from the medical profession. Some midwives said you must carry on bf, others said quit right away. So I tried to carry on. I was even held down in a hospital bed by a bf counsillor who insisted I bf despite the fact I was crying in pain. The doc said after there was no way I could have breastfed with that infection as it was strep and under the nipple. Anyway to summarise I ff my ds and he is just fine, of course he is, he's got similar genes to his bro and sis! I did want to comment sometimes when I was ff in public when I got disapproving looks from some bf mums! But what the hell who cares, am I going to beat myself up about it? no

When you have a new baby it is such a lovely time but I think lots of women feel really delicate I think it's sad that women are judged at such a time when they could do with support.

Yes, yes, yes!

I was so, so worried what people would think of me when I made the decision to stop trying to BF.

I also see a lot of people on here and other forums feeling the need to explain themselves and justify why they are FF, and I've been guilty of doing the same thing. Im at the stage now where I honestly could not care less what other people think

I am all for the promition of breastfeeding, but Starlight's idea that its ocytocin spreading abilities are enough to prevent societal violence and social inequality would require us to ignore several millennia of pre-formula human history: the Victorian slums, the wars of religion, the ruthless destruction of aboriginal peoples across the globe. Or do oxytocins only work on modern people. Surely if they were that efficient you would have expected 16th century France to have had a lower level of violence than 21st century France? And differences between social classes to be greater now than they were in Victorian England?

They only work for WOMEN! That's the point. Until recently WOMEN had very little influence over anything in the world, until they started to behave like men and disband with their 'nurturing' roles and in many cases deny them.

Um.............why do you think oxytocin only "works in women"?